NVIDIA driver fails to load on boot 75% of time

[John Dickson]

I have a Dell E6510 laptop containing an NVIDIA 3100M card. I'm running 32 bit Ubuntu Lucid (10.04), using the proprietary NVIDIA driver provided with Lucid (nouveau doesn't yet work with this card).

About 75% of the time the machine fails to boot - after 3-4 seconds, and without showing anything on the screen (text or graphical), it hangs with a black screen with a flashing text-mode cursor. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-F7 (or any other keys) has no effect. The Xorg.log shows:
    Fatal server error:
    no screens found

However, roughly once in every 4 attempts (varies widely) I see messages on the screen about ureadahead and plymouthd having been killed by the OOM killer, and the machine boots correctly and functions without problem.

This happens with both the drivers provided with Lucid, and the latest drivers directly from NVIDIA. It's been suggested on the NVIDIA forums that this may be a timing issue.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: nvidia-current 195.36.24-0ubuntu1~10.04
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.39-generic-pae 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Aug 11 16:08:34 2010
DkmsStatus: nvidia-current, 195.36.24, 2.6.32-24-generic-pae, i686: installed
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E6510
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic-pae root=UUID=df624372-81d2-4564-8517-98b2c1471a73 ro quiet
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_AU.utf8
SourcePackage: nvidia-graphics-drivers
dmi.bios.date: 05/28/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A03
dmi.board.name: 0N5KHN
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA03:bd05/28/2010:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE6510:pvr0001:rvnDellInc.:rn0N5KHN:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E6510
dmi.product.version: 0001
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.32-24-generic-pae

[John Dickson (captsens)]

This seems somewhat similar to (but not the same as) bug number 532436.

[dazza5000 (darran-kelinske)]

John,

Thank you for reporting this one. I have experienced this too on 10.10 Alpha 3 and it's not fun. What makes you think this is different than 532436?

-Darran

[John Dickson (captsens)]

Hi Darran

I noticed a couple of differences with 532436:
 - Xorg.log shows a stack trace (mine doesn't)
 - Post 24 mentions getting a console login at boot. Mine just hangs

But it may well be the same issue, just some different symptoms.

Cheers ................. John

[John Dickson (captsens)]

This issue is resolved as of 2.6.32-25 - the machine boots to X every time, and there are no longer any messages about plymouthd or ureadahead being killed.

[dino99 (9d9)]

That version is no more supported; please open a new bug report if the actual archive found version also has the same issue.